An Evening at the Theatre
by writergal85
Summary: Shelagh and Patrick are gifted tickets to a musical that seems awfully familiar. Originally posted on my blog, now moved here.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: A story written a while ago about the Turners going to see a certain musical. Borrowing the character of Edward Monk from_** _ **this-unruly-heart's**_ _ **Diary fic.**_ ** _Borrowing every other character from Neal Street Productions._**

"Patrick? Patrick Turner?"

Patrick turned from the newsstand, having just purchased another packet of cigarettes. The man behind him was familiar – blond, clean-cut, grey overcoat – but he couldn't place him.

"Edward Monk," the man said. "Colin's father."

"Right, sorry. Long morning." Patrick shook his hand. "How are you?"

"Fine. Yourself?"

"Good."

There was a moment of awkward silence, as both men were unsure of what else to say. Their wives were good friends and their sons, frequent playmates, but beyond the odd Cubs outing and a picnic organized once by Shelagh, the two fathers hadn't seen much of each other. Patrick, for his part, had never really warmed to Edward; the solicitor just seemed a bit too flippant. He offered him a cigarette now, like a peace pipe, but Edward shook his head.

"Thanks, don't smoke. Just came by for a packet of gum. Listen, I'm glad I ran into you."

"Oh?" Often that sentence preceded a plea for medical advice, which he usually gave, albeit cautiously.

"Jean was going to ring Shelagh, I think, but since you're here – " he paused to pay the news agent. "Jean's mother is ill –"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you need a consult?"

"Oh no. No. She's in a hospital in Leeds. Jean is taking Colin to visit her for a while this weekend. It's only we had theatre tickets for this Saturday and since we can't go, Jean thought perhaps you and Shelagh might like them."

Patrick frowned in surprise. "Theatre tickets?"

Edward popped a stick of gum in his mouth. "Uh-huh, West End. Some show Jean wanted to see. _The Sound of Music_ , I think?"

He hadn't heard of it, though that wasn't unusual. Patrick didn't care much for musicals, and only read the front page and the sports columns of the paper on the rare chance he had the time. But Shelagh was musical and might enjoy an evening out. "How much?"

"No charge. I got the pair as a sort of thank you from a client. What do you say?"

"That's…rather generous of you." He probably should be more skeptical – he barely knew Edward, and if his experience with Fred had taught him anything, it was that free or cheap goods were rarely the bargain they seemed to be. But Edward was a respected solicitor and it was unlikely he'd get into any dodgy schemes. "Well, thanks. Let me ask Shelagh tonight, but I'm sure she'd love it. It's been a while since we've had an evening out, with the baby and everything."

Edward nodded in commiseration. "I remember those days. Just call round the house, Jean has the tickets. Got to dash – lunch meeting." He paused and a sly grin appeared on his face. "You might like the show, actually. Jean said you got on well with the nuns."

"How would you feel about an evening at the theatre?"

Shelagh tried not to roll her eyes. She currently had Angela balanced on the edge of the kitchen counter as she tried to clean the mushy peas from dinner off her daughter's face and hair. Her apron was a lost cause and would have to be scrubbed thoroughly. An evening at the theatre? That was the furthest thing from her reality. "Why do you ask?"

"I ran into Edward Monk at the news agent's this morning –"

"I didn't know you and Edward talked."

"We don't, usually. It was a chance meeting. Anyway, he said he had these theatre tickets that he and Jean couldn't use because her mother is ill –"

"Oh no, she never said. I should ring her, perhaps take something round –"

"Shelagh." He sighed in exasperation and she finally glanced at him through the kitchen hatch. There was glint of excitement in his eye so Timothy-like that she laughed.

"Sorry, Patrick." She wiped the last of the food from their toddler's face, then crossed through to the sitting room and set her in her playpen. "There. Now, what's this about the theatre?"

"Edward is giving me these tickets for absolutely nothing. It's Saturday. Do you want to go?"

She frowned, a small crease appearing between her eyebrows. "They're free?"

"It's not like one of Fred's schemes. He said he got them as a thank you gift from a grateful client. He's just passing them on, since Jean will be away taking care of her mother."

"What's the play?" she said as she settled on the couch beside him.

"It's a musical. The, um _Sound of Music,_ I think he said? Heard of it?"

"Jean mentioned it last time we spoke," she said, taking a puff of his proffered cigarette. "Thank you. She asked if I had heard any of the music. Some of the songs are quite good apparently. Oh, and the some of the characters are nuns."

"Yes, Edward made some cheeky remark about that – said I 'got on rather well,' with them." The man's sly wink as he'd walked away had annoyed and confused Patrick. He gathered Shelagh had told Jean about the unusual beginning of their relationship, and Jean had most likely told her husband, but he barely knew the man, certainly not well enough for such ribbing.

"Well, everyone knows you are Sister Evangelina's favorite," Shelagh said with a delightful smirk.

Patrick snorted as he stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette. "We could go – if you want. I'm not on call that evening. Ask the Noakes if they can watch Angela. Tim's old enough to take care himself, or he can stay with them, too."

She sighed and leaned back as he wrapped an arm around her. "I'd love to go, you know that. I've never been to the theatre. But Patrick, are you sure _you_ want to go? You nearly fell asleep at the last choral society concert."

"Your choice of music happened to be very soothing," he said, placing a light kiss under her ear. "We haven't had a real night out in a while. Not even on our anniversary."

Her hand curved around the back of his neck and into his hair as he peppered kisses along her jawline. "Hmm, only because one of us is rather fond of staying in."

He smiled. "If you are trying to seduce me, Mrs. Turner, I'm sorry –" he kissed the corner of her lips. "— but you're going to have to take me to dinner and a show first."

She chuckled and kissed him full and soft on the mouth. "All right then. Let's go. It could be fun."


	2. Chapter 2

Saturday evening, their son and daughter safely deposited at the Noakes', Dr. and Mrs. Turner headed toward the West End for their night out.

Shelagh, so long cooped up with the baby, had taken extra care with her appearance, choosing a silvery grey dress she hadn't worn for ages, and brushing her hair out until it shone like candlelight. Patrick, in his dark suit, waistcoat and tie, looked particularly handsome too, she thought. Butterflies of anticipation beat in her ribcage as they drove to the restaurant and settled in for a quiet, intimate meal. Her excitement came not so much from the show they were about to see, as it did from the company of the man sitting across from her, and his attention to her. She hadn't felt like this since – well, since they were dating. This was a date. She was dating her husband.

"What is it?" Patrick asked. "You've got this Cheshire cat grin on your face."

Shelagh blushed slightly. "Even if the show turns out to be terrible, this was an excellent idea." She reached across the table and curled her fingers into his. "I'm having a wonderful time."

He smiled. "I'm glad. So Jean wouldn't tell you anything more about the show?"

She took a delicate sip from her wine glass, still unused to strong drink. "Not a word. She was very coy about it, but said she thought I'd enjoy it and she wanted to know all my thoughts as soon as she returned from Leeds." All in all, it had been a very peculiar conversation, with Shelagh expressing her thanks for the tickets and offering prayers for Jean's mother, while Jean just seemed to want to talk about the show.

"Then I suppose we should head to the theatre. She'd be sorely disappointed if we missed it." He rose, pulled out her chair and offered her his hand. "Shall we?"

The house lights dimmed as Patrick handed the usher their tickets. "Just in time," Shelagh said.

"Sorry, darling. Would you have rather been early? Had a chance to look over the program?"

"Early? Really Patrick?"

He shrugged as they took their seats. "I thought I'd ask."

The orchestra began to tune. "We'll just be surprised, I suppose," she whispered in the dark.

Ninety minutes later, Dr. and Mrs. Turner walked into the theatre lobby for intermission.

"Well that was…"

"A surprise?"

"More like deja vu, I think." He looked down at his wife and his brow furrowed in concern. "Are you all right? You got a bit teary during that last song."

"I'm fine, Patrick. It was just emotional to watch, that's all." She gave him a tiny smile and squeezed his hand. "I'm going to go powder my nose."

"I promised Tim a chocolate bar. Meet back here?"

She nodded and they parted.

* * *

Of course there was a line for the ladies'. Shelagh took a place at the end, standing quietly among the other chattering women. Her mind was too full of music and Maria's story.

She turned the program over in her hands and read the summary again. A young nun falls in love with a widower and leaves the convent to marry him and become a mother to his children.

No wonder Jean had been so coy about the story when she'd asked.

Shelagh shook her head to try to clear it. This wasn't her story. It was remarkably like hers, but it wasn't _her_. She didn't go around singing about lonely goatherds, and unlike the Von Trapp mansion, the Turner house had never been a place of strict order.

Still, as she'd watched the Captain hold out his hand, silently asking Maria to dance, Shelagh couldn't help but remember another, much simpler, party when she'd given her hand to Patrick and realized all of her forbidden longing was reciprocated. She knew he regretted taking such a liberty that day, but the truth was she'd been just as desperate to touch him, and the thought of that first kiss on her palm still thrilled her.

Then months of anguish – anguish she could see just as plainly in Maria when she returned to the convent. Shelagh was in tears by the time the nun confessed her feelings to the Mother Abbess. Her own confession to Sister Julienne had been quiet and fumbled, but the pain was the same.

But if Maria's life turned out as happily as hers had – it would, wouldn't it? – well then, memories were just that: memories, to be cherished for the good, not the remembered for the bad. There had been many happy memories in recent years, she thought, smiling.

"It's so romantic, isn't it?"

A redhead in an emerald green dress pointed toward the program in Shelagh's hand.

"Yes, very." And it was, watching the Captain and Maria fall in love on stage. Would others look at her and Patrick's life and find it romantic? She certainly didn't most days, though there were moments of romance, like their dinner tonight, or the evenings when they'd dance together in the sitting room after Timothy and Angela were in bed.

But, after three years of marriage, she was still deeply in love with her husband and he with her; she found proof of that every day. Perhaps there was romance in that. Her small grin widened. "I'm quite fond of the music, too," she said.

"I know. I loved the song she sang with the children - _Do, a deer, a female deer_." She giggled. "So clever, I'll be humming it all night." They'd reached a row of mirrors. The woman began patting her hair and smoothing loose curls.

"Of course, I don't think I could be a governess to seven children. I mean, _seven_?" She sighed. "But it can't be any worse than being in a convent."

Shelagh felt a blush creep up the back of her neck. "Well, it was still her home. It can't have been easy to leave."

"Are you kidding? Have you seen that Captain Von Trapp – what a dish! No wonder she's thrown off the habit!"

Her cheeks burned. Suddenly, she was transported back three years to her first week "out of the habit." She remembered standing in a dress shop and listening to the shopkeeper and another customer trade barely whispered gossip about Patrick and herself – most of which wasn't even true. She took her lipstick out of her handbag and reapplied it with a shaky hand.

"I mean, I couldn't even imagine being a nun like that," the woman said. "Could you?"

Shelagh turned and glanced at her sharply. The woman's smile was guileless, her eyes full of nothing but the same giddy excitement Shelagh had felt walking into the theatre that evening.

She had no idea.

"No," she said, fighting back a laugh. "Not at all."

* * *

The evening had begun so well. For once, Patrick had been on time picking up Tim from cricket practice, and Angela didn't fuss at all when they dropped her and her brother off at the Noakes. They'd had a wonderful meal, the first in ages with no interruptions from a messy toddler or a sullen teenager. Shelagh looked radiant, her daily worries about housework and the children thrown off for the night, and when she'd said that the date had been "a wonderful idea" he couldn't help but agree.

The only minor hiccup had been their late rush to make it to the theatre on time, but Shelagh hadn't even seemed to mind that. As the show began, he could hear her humming along to the music, and the few times he'd looked over at his wife, her face had been rapt with attention as she'd watched the story play out on stage.

It wasn't until nearly halfway through the first act that things began to feel uncomfortably familiar.

"You brought music back into the house. I had forgotten," the Captain said, stunned by the sight of his children singing again, all thanks to Maria.

Patrick's mind drifted back to an afternoon more than three years ago, when he'd been short with Timothy after he'd shown up at the clinic with a scraped arm. Shelagh – then Sister Bernadette – had stepped in and taken care of him. Somehow, she knew how to smooth everything over, not just then, but other days too. She made him feel at ease. She made Tim laugh; she made him laugh. She made him fall in love with her.

Patrick sat up straighter in his seat. The Captain – a widower with children – was asking – no, practically begging the young nun to stay. ( _Stay, take tea with me, he'd asked once. She'd refused_ ) He glanced over at his wife and squeezed her hand.

"Shelagh?"

She leaned closer, but her eyes never left the stage.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"The play, Patrick? I think so."

"No," he said, ignoring the woman behind them shushing him. "The Captain and Maria."

She finally looked at him, her face somewhat impatient.

"The widower," he hissed. "And the _nun_."

Even in the dark, he could see her eyes widen.

"No," she gasped softly. "Jean would have said –"

The woman behind them shushed loudly again, and they both quieted.

As another song began and the set changed to an elaborate party scene, Shelagh leaned toward him again, whispering so low he could barely hear her.

"He was merely thanking her for taking care of his children. That could mean anything." She pursed her lips, and he knew she too was thinking of all the times she had offered him advice about Timothy or paid special attention to the boy when Patrick couldn't be around. There were only two reasons for such kindness: pity or love.

"Do you want to leave?" This was supposed to be her night, and Patrick didn't want to stay if the story and the memories it brought back were too awkward or painful for her.

She turned toward the stage again, where the Captain was asking Maria to dance, and a grin slowly dawned on her face. "No," she said, her voice a whispered rush in his ear. "Let's stay."

They watched the couple dance and applauded after the children sang their "goodnight" song. It was only when Maria returned to the convent that Patrick questioned whether staying had been a good idea. He felt Shelagh's hand slip from his during the nun's tearful confession, and he looked over at her. She was crying, her handkerchief pressed to her nose.

There had been some awkwardness between Shelagh and her former sisters before their wedding, and Patrick knew leaving behind what had been her way of life for 10 years couldn't have been easy.

But Shelagh never spoke very much about her struggle with her faith and her feelings, or her time at the sanatorium. And he'd never really asked. Some things were better not discussed.

But now, as he fumbled in his pocket for money for the chocolate, he wondered if he should have.

He saw Shelagh returning from the ladies'. He quickly bought an extra Dairy Milk and stowed it in his coat along with Tim's candy and went to meet her. She might want to leave after all.

"Ready for Act 2?" she asked with a wide grin as he approached.

Patrick felt slightly stunned and chuckled in disbelief. "Well, if you are. Are you?"

She laughed. "Patrick, I've told you – I'm having a wonderful time." She slipped her arm into his. "And don't you want to know how it ends?"


	3. Chapter 3

"And then she said 'I couldn't imagine being a nun like that. Could you?'"

Patrick laughed. "What did you say?"

"I said I couldn't."

This raised an eyebrow. "Shelagh Turner, you lied?"

"It wasn't exactly a lie," she said, her smile coy. "The nuns in the musical were Catholic, a different order. The rituals are different."

"You mean you and Sister Julienne never had meetings in her office where you sang about your favorite things?"

She burst into a fit of infectious laughter, so loud and unexpected, a couple walking past them turned their heads. "Well," she said, as they sat down side by side on a bench. "Only once or twice."

Their evening had ended some time ago, but rather than head home, Patrick and Shelagh had lingered, strolling aimlessly until they'd ended up by the river. They continued their conversation from dinner, talking about the children, gossip from Nonnatus and news from clinic. And they talked about the play.

Patrick saw he had been foolish to worry earlier. Shelagh had enjoyed herself immensely, and she seemed to find the little similarities between the play and their lives quite amusing.

"It's too bad Angela's still so young. We could form our own singing group – the Turner Family Singers," he joked.

"Yes, I'm sure Timothy would be thrilled." She already had a hard enough time trying to get him to practice accompaniments for the choir; he asked nearly every week when Angela would be old enough to start piano lessons. She supposed it was only natural that Timothy would want to explore other interests as he got older – cricket and football being chief among those – but she rather liked having an activity they could do together. She shivered slightly and pulled Patrick's coat (he had lent it to her earlier) tighter around her shoulders.

"Are you warm enough? Are you sure you don't want to head back?" he asked.

"Not yet." She scooted closer to him, pressing into his side. They were quite alone now. "Pass me another piece of that chocolate?"

He broke off two more squares and gave her one. She savored it, letting it slowly melt on her tongue, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I told you she'd go back to him," she teased. "And you were worried."

He looked at her, his coat clutched tightly around her shoulders, the breeze teasing wisps of hair around her face, and remembered a road. "I was, for a bit."

She caught the emotion in his voice and turned her head, frowning. "What is it?"

He took one of her cold hands in both of his, warming it. "When Maria ran away, back to the convent, it made me think of your time in the sanatorium."

She'd thought of that time of trial too, but his remark caught her off-guard. She'd been expecting a happier memory from him. "Oh."

"You don't ever talk about it."

She pursed her lips, forming her words carefully. "It was a difficult time, for both of us. You were worried and there was Timothy to consider and I was ill and…unsure." She looked away, not wanting to see the pain on his face. She knew that hearing of her doubts, even if they no longer existed, must hurt him. He'd been so sure of what he felt; she still had his letters telling her so.

"Unsure of me?"

"No." She shook her head insistently. "Unsure of myself. Unsure if I would even live to –"

"Shelagh." His voice broke.

She gripped his hand tighter. "I needed time to pray and to think. I'd felt out of place at Nonnatus for a long time. There were moments, before my diagnosis, when I felt – I thought, if I could go away from Poplar, I'd feel relief and it would get easier." She took a deep breath. "And then I had to go away, and that was so much harder."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

She smiled at him. "I'm sorry I waited so long before reading your letters. They were wonderful. And you never got a reply."

"You recovered and you came back." He grinned. "That was all the reply I needed."

She kissed him softly, just once, as they were still in public. The taste of the chocolate lingered on his mouth. "Ready for home?" he asked.

She nodded. They both stood, and he tucked her arm in his as they walked back to the car.

"I still can't help feeling that Edward and Jean are in Leeds laughing at us right now," Patrick said.

Shelagh giggled. "Oh, let them laugh. I'm sure they won't be the last to make the comparison."

"What are you going to say to her, when she asks about tonight?"

"I'm going to thank her again for the tickets, tell her we had a lovely time and that you and I are planning on forming our own family singing group."

Patrick snorted with laughter as he unlocked the car and climbed in. Shelagh followed, removing his jacket and folding it in her lap.

"Would you still have married me, if I'd had seven children?" he asked.

She smirked and covered his hand with hers. "Oh Patrick, I would have had to. Timothy times seven? There's no way you would have ever survived without me."


End file.
